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Title: Tripmaster Monkey : His Fake Book by Maxine Hong Kingston ISBN: 0-679-72789-2 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 June, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (8 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Very Disappointing
Comment: I really do not want to write a bad review of Maxine Hong Kingston's work. Her "Woman Warrior" and "China Men" were wonderful. And she is a wonderful person. But that make me all the more disappointed with "Tripmaster Monkey."
I am quite familiar with post-modern novels, and I find Milan Kundera's roaming meanders and flying leaps a very pleasant read. So my reaction is not to post-modern style but rather to her application of that style.
There are so many layers upon heavy layers of self-indulgent baggage to plod through that reading the book became a nightmarish experience. I always try to read at least 100 pages of any book before abandoning it -- and I abandon books only very rarely. But after 68 pages of "Tripmaster Monkey", I simply could not go on, and I put it back on the shelf.
I may someday try it again. But I doubt it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Memoir of a Playwright Among Ghosts?
Comment: It is hard to believe that "Tripmaster Monkey: His ... Book" is by the same author who wrote "The Woman Warrior." Maxine Hong Kingston's "Tripmaster Monkey" is her first "novel" (though by no means her first foray into fiction), and it is easy to see why there was a nine year gap between this book and "China Men." Kingston's novel, centring on a young, literary minded Chinese American man named Wittman Ah Sing, is meticulously researched and detailed, bringing to life the issues and fads of the mid-1960s Bay Area literary scene. Wittman, largely without an Chinese/Asian American literary tradition, has to overcome (white) racist assumptions of "the artist" in order to produce his truly American play without it being reduced to some "exotic" or "Oriental" exercise in Asianness. Despite the seriousness of Wittman's self- and community-driven mission to be taken seriously as an artist despite the racist assumptions that attempt to stifle his creativity, the novel is extremely funny, witty and surreal. Wittman disturbs a girl he is infatuated with by proclaiming "I am really: the present-day USA incarnation of the King of the Monkeys." Wittman is fired from his department store job because he puts "an organ-grinder's monkey with cymbals attached to its hands" on ..., for customers (children) to see! Wittman's parents abandon his honorary grandmother PoPo high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to die, and she is later rescued by a wealthy man who just happens to be seeking a wife! In many ways, Kingston's rendering of the surreal, "tripmaster" (mental and physical) wanderings of Wittman resemble the textual flow of the post-"Moby Dick" novels by Herman Melville. As with those later Melville novels, Kingston's own novel is often angry, but is also frightfully funny and filled with accurate observations of life, love and the role of art, religion, philosophy and national identity in society.
Rating: 5
Summary: Tripmaster Ulysses??
Comment: It is little wonder that many people will dislike this book. After all, it assumes an advanced reading skill; the ability to follow a disjointed, post-modern narrative; and a spohisticated view of what literature ought to be. Some folks just aint got the stones for that. Poor dears, they are just, well ... let's just say they are limited.
See, there is more to books than just telling a simple story. Sometimes you need to be challenged. That is what really great books do. They challenge the reader to actually flex their minds. Tripmaster does just that.
The story of Wittman's (mis)place in society is a journey of self discovery for both himself and the reader. It brings up obstacles and barriers, both real and imagined, and forces the Wittman/reader to confront them.
Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Every page had a tangible flavor, and it was a pure joy to see the english language used so deftly. It also helped that I too, like the characters in this novel, am an alumnus of Cal.
Now I totally understand that not every book needs to be challenging or use complicated verbal gymnastics to be considered great. But to off-handedly criticize this book for being a mess or a waste of time reflects more on the readers severe limits and mental weakness rather than the book's.
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Title: China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston ISBN: 0679723285 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Woman Warrior : Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston ISBN: 0679721886 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Fifth Book of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston ISBN: 0679440755 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong, Kathryn Uhl ISBN: 0295968265 Publisher: University of Washington Press Pub. Date: June, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: To Be the Poet : by Maxine Hong Kingston ISBN: 0674007913 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 16 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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